In the early days of the Trump administration many of us started to wonder when Republicans, at least those that were #NeverTrump, would stand up to Trump. Surely, they would be concerned when their supposed sacred cows began to be slaughtered. (We thought this during the primaries too, but...) National security? Nah. Mike Flynn’s shady dealings were no problem! Law and order? A few Republican politicians shook their head when Trump fired Comey, but basically did nothing.
They just kept on keeping on. The story that began to emerge is that Republicans were holding their nose in order to get judges appointed to the Supreme Court and get their tax cut passed.
While this is certainly a harsh condemnation of their courage, it’s something that you can at least politicians do all the time: they are get their priorities in exchange for other things that might not be too pleasant to them.
So the narrative became, the GOP sold its soul for some judges and a tax cut. It makes sense. It makes whores and cowards of them, but it makes sense.
But is it true?
In order for this to be true, in order for the Faustian bargain myth to hold any water, there has to be some tragic element in them actually not wanting some of these things. But I don’t believe that.
The modern GOP is nothing more than a grift machine, a sort of slow-motion AI, that, instead of maximizing paperclips, maximizes wealth for a few plutocrats who hawk gold on AM radio and their pals. If they can use racism as a lever to get the proles on their side, great. If they love a reality TV star who is Putin’s meat puppet so what?
In other words, the GOP isn’t Faust, it’s Mephistopheles. Trump isn’t really Faust either. A Faust puppet. And here’s my main argument:
None, I repeat, None of these policy outcomes that they supposedly sold their soul to get would vary one iota under President Pence. Not one. This is what they want. They want families separated at the border. They want high racial tensions so they can say what they really think and it’s no problem. They want public school teachers being trained in what to do in a shooting because fuck public school and fuck school and muh guns. There is nothing Trump has done or wants to do that any of these people really want.
To believe differently is to believe the 40-year-long “deficit hawk” scam that the GOP plays every time they are out of power. Law and order and national security and family values? Just a scam, like everything else about them.
“Fraud” was the word I used to symbolize the W years. Trillions of dollars of wealth were taken away from the middle class and a fraudulent war was launched because let’s kill some Ai-rabbz.
And how quickly they recovered with their next scam: the “Tea Party.” We don’t like Bush and his deficits, they said. Shit. People believed that. Paul Ryan was very serious.
They have played earnest anti-abortion Christians with their abortion politics for 45 years as well, never wanting to own the consequences of reversing Roe and never wanting that drive sapped from their base when tax cuts were needed.
The GOP never sold their soul to Trump because Trump is their soul, their id, their very fucking essence exposed for everyone to see.